“Mutual Recognition in Illness: Finding a Relational Pulse”

This talk has been approved by New York State for 2 hours of Continuing Education Credit for LMSWs and LCSWs.

Have you coped with an illness while maintaining your clinical practice? Is it possible to be present with physical discomfort without disclosing it? What is the impact of illness and a therapeutic relationship on one's sense of meaning and identity?

This presentation will describe a common journey toward healing. The two speakers will explore their search for a relational pulse in an interpersonal en-counter as psychoanalyst/patient and medical oncology nurse during cancer and treatment. The role of dreams, memories of trauma, dissociation, implicit and explicit communication during the medical procedures and complementary care will be discussed.

At the conclusion of our presentation, participants will be more familiar with a medical/oncology dyad; and more conversant with living with medical conditions and therapeutic ways to work with the shame of illness and the transformative power of spontaneity and the possibility for aliveness.

Fran Conway is a registered Oncology Nurse at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center and a Certified Holistic Counselor and Regis-tered Yoga Therapist. She is Complementary Clinical Program Manager for the Urologic Health Center and Breast Cancer Program at the hospital.

Fran Dillon is a graduate of Columbia University School of Social Work and TRISP: The Training and Research Institute in Self Psychology, where she is a Training Analyst. She is Co-Director of the Artist Study Group of the Psycho-therapy Service for People in the Arts at the William Alanson White Institute. She has a psychotherapy/psychoanalytic private practice on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.